Rebuilding the turn signal switch...

[Carbuilder]

...and probably going overboard with it!

My turn signal switch had a lot of slop in it; forwards/backwards and when using it up and down. Since I was taking the dash, steering wheel and other stuff out, I took it out and had a good look at it. Someone did a quick and nasty repair on it:



No wonder it was sloppy. So, my usual going above and beyond a basic fix, I machined a new shaft part for it that would accommodate some small bearings:



The shaft presses into the stationary part (with a bit of loctite). The bearings are 8mm OD, 5mm ID. Both the bores of the stationary part and the turn signal switch arm only needed a slight bit of opening up to fit these parts. There was enough thickness in the arm to install 3 bearings.

Shaft and bearings in place. I machined a small spacer to take up the remaining play in the assembly:



All back together and working very smoothly turning on bearings. Should outlast me now.



Rick

 

[Carbuilder]

I finally got around to mounting the turn signal switch on my modified steering column. Modified because I added electric power steering. When I had the car on the road, the turn signal did not cancel consistently enough on one side. After I reinstalled it, the issue did not miraculously cure itself, despite my wishful thinking.

I found that with a right turn, the turn signal lever weight was enough to not have the turn signal switch stay up consistently enough. It needed a more positive force to help it "click" into place. And moving it down, for a left turn, did not feel really positive and it would not self cancel. The trip lever I made for the steering column would cancel for a right turn but not a left. I didn't want to make it any longer as it would then press harder against the side that was canceling. So having a good look at it and figuring what the issue was, here is how I solved it.



I used thin strips of brass, instant glued in place. One was to build up the end of the trip lever arm. That canceled OK, but the movement was still very "soft" and didn't click into place nicely. The smaller piece I added solved that and it works very nicely now. I still wasn't happy with the looseness of it when moving the lever up, so this is what I did.



If you look closely you will see a small piece of music wire stuck in the gap at the base of the upper plastic arm. This puts just enough extra force on the arm as it rubs on the mating part of the mechanism. Now the turn signal works very well both ways.

So if your turn signal switch is not working as well as you would like, maybe some mods like this will help.

The screw that holds the trip piece on the column also goes into the slot in the inner column piece to be the stop for the telescoping steering wheel mechanism.

Rick